The Bubble Nebula By Firemandan666

Picture of the Day 2 - November 9, 2018

Narrow sea cuts through the forests of a life supporting world with red-colored vegetation.

Purple Matter [500 x 750] by Skratt

★☆★ SPACE ★☆★

Picture of the day - November 19, 2018

The sun begins to set behind a large moon of a gas giant that has a thick atmosphere. Another large satellite is visible in the background.

Triangulum Log - Blue Veil System - Post 2 (Inner Giants)

The inner two planets of the system, a hot ice giant and warm gas giant.

The inner planet orbits 0.16 AU from the sun, has a mass 12 times that of Earth and an average atmospheric temperature of 813° F.

The second world is a Saturn-like gas giant with an impressive ring system. It orbits 0.64 AU from the sun, has a mass of 82 Earths, and a single large satellite orbiting it.

High Resolution Images

Image 1 - Inner-most Planet (Hot Ice Giant)

Image 2 - Two Suns in the sky

Image 3 - Stunning Rings

Image 4 - Giant in the sky

Image 5 - Lone Companion

Image 6 - Twin suns against the rings

Pictures of the day - November 28, 2018

Ringed Earth-sized moon with a thin foggy atmosphere.

High Resolution Pictures

Violet Rings

Closeup

Sky

Thin Atmosphere

Crater fog

Enceladus

Enceladus is one of the major inner moons of Saturn along with Dione, Tethys, and Mimas. It orbits Saturn at a distance of 148,000 miles (238,000 km), falling between the orbits of Mimas and Tethys. It is tidally locked with Saturn, keeping the same face toward the planet. It completes one orbit every 32.9 hours within the densest part of Saturn’s E Ring, the outermost of its major rings, and is its main source.

Enceladus is, like many moons in the extensive systems of the giant planets, trapped in an orbital resonance. Its resonance with Dione excites its orbital eccentricity, which is damped by tidal forces, tidally heating its interior, and possibly driving the geological activity.

Enceladus is Saturn’s sixth largest moon, only 157 miles (252 km) in mean radius, but it’s one of the most scientifically compelling bodies in our solar system. Hydrothermal vents spew water vapor and ice particles from an underground ocean beneath the icy crust of Enceladus. This plume of material includes organic compounds, volatile gases, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, salts and silica.

With its global ocean, unique chemistry and internal heat, Enceladus has become a promising lead in our search for worlds where life could exist.

In 2005, Cassini’s multiple instruments discovered that this icy outpost is gushing water vapor geysers out to a distance of three times the radius of Enceladus. The icy water particles are roughly one ten-thousandth of an inch, or about the width of a human hair. The particles and gas escape the surface at jet speed at approximately 800 miles per hour (400 meters per second). The eruptions appear to be continuous, refreshing the surface and generating an enormous halo of fine ice dust around Enceladus, which supplies material to one of Saturn’s rings, the E-ring.

Several gases, including water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, perhaps a little ammonia and either carbon monoxide or nitrogen gas make up the gaseous envelope of the plume.

Read more at: solarsystem.nasa.gov

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cassini & Kevin Gill

Picture of the day - December 12, 2018

Moon rise over Insight B-V. The second sun is also visible in this pic.

Picture of the Day - January 21, 2019

A ringed Titan under the dim glow of a red sun.

Picture of the day - February 6, 2019 - (Very late post)

Ringed ocean world with greenish-gray colored oceans. The Carina Nebula fills the sky in the background.

Pictures of the day 2 - February 1, 2019 - (very late post)

I decided to try something different this time. I found this large moon orbiting beautiful a blue gas giant and decided to take pictures of the sky overlooking a mountain at different times in the moon's orbit. The only time the moon ever gets dark is during an eclipse, otherwise the reflected light from the gas giant illuminates the surface in a bluish tinted light at night.

Space Engine System ID: RS 0-5-14693-319-17241-6-194958-8 3.1 to visit the moon in Space Engine.